The Fighter
by Kimiko93
Summary: A Fighter is a person who doesn't give up or admit that they are defeated. Alternate time skip. Minor NaruHina, TemaShikaIno & NejiTen. SasuSaku-ish.


_A Fighter is a person who doesn't give up or admit that they are defeated (Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionary)_

* * *

Breathing heavily and soaked with cold sweat, Sakura Haruno woke up from one of her nightmares.

The usual one, of course. The one featuring a certain night, a certain person, a certain place and in the first place, two certain words.

_Thank you._

Even now, one year after this night, these dreams still haunted her every other night, facing her merciless with her own stupidity.

Seriously, how could she have ever been stupid enough to believe he would even listen to those words she told him back then? Well, at least she didn't anymore…

No, she most definitely wasn't the same person she had been the year before, the year her nightmare took place in.

After she had drowned herself in training last year, she was pretty sure of that. Not only she finally wasn't a useless crybaby anymore, no, as a ninja, Sakura was pretty good by now, she was persuaded. The constant training under the current Hokage made sure of that anyway.

But the harsh training had also left its marks on her: She was awfully flat chested for an almost fourteen-year old girl and her shoulders were wide enough to make her look like one of the boys. If that was possible for someone with rosette hair, that is.

She also started to dress pretty much badass, as Naruto liked to put it. Instead of the red dress and the green leggings she used to wear, she now wore a dark red sleeveless top, black trousers and fishnet gloves and over knee socks.

Naruto called it badass, Ino called it emo.

Yes, the combination of black and red made her kind of look like an emo, but that didn't match with her newly developed angry attitude, in the words of Tenten, who she had grown a close friendship with, since Tenten was like, the only girl who could understand her changes. Kind of, as Sakura couldn't quite understand them herself.

Ino only made fun of her, which wasn't meant to hurt her. The two of them had renewed their friendship as they had gotten over Sasuke together.

This had certainly been one of the bigger parts in her so-called transformation, getting rid of her extremely unhealthy crush. Because, hey, not only had he left her unconscious on a bench, no, he had also left his own village behind and on the way, beaten the crap out of Naruto and made him look like a mummy for weeks.

And the very moment she had seen Naruto, half-dead and wrapped up like some sort of mummy, her inner changes had started.

And most of all, her opinion of Sasuke.

Of course, she still helped Naruto with the whole getting-him-back-thing, but deep inside her, she was persuaded to be better of without him. Seriously, what good had he done for them anyway? Okay, he kinda-sorta had saved their lives sometimes, but still, what he had done was unforgivable.

While her breathing calmed down, Sakura glanced at the alarm clock beside her bed. Half past five. Great. So there was still an hour left before she had to get up since there were no missions for her.

And no, she most definitely couldn't just fall back asleep. Not after that nightmare.

On the other hand, she neither felt like staying in bed nor like getting ready that early. Just great. So she would just keep lying there, staring out of the window and thinking about… Stuff.

Or so she thought.

Because just as the lying-down-part was settled, someone knocked at her window.

"What the… Naruto?" she mumbled, while she opened the window and regarded the person in front of it. "What the hell are you doing in front of my window this early?"

"Granny called for us." he responded, grinning at her.

"…She's already awake?" Sakura asked surprised.

"Kind of. And in her usual mood, so you better hurry." Naruto answered and jumped down on the street, where she joined him ten minutes later.

"So, what does she want?" Sakura kept on asking, while they ran through the streets.

"I don't know." Naruto said. "But I guess it's something important…"

* * *

So, yeah. An alternate timeskip about Sakura being strong. Of course the mission will be to get Sasuke back who immediately falls in love with her, but she herself will need the next eighteen chapters to realize, hey, I've never stopped loving him. And then they will live happily ever after.

Not.

So, if you still wanna read this thing, beware, grammar mistakes ahead! Stupid German girl translating old fanfiction here and being unable to find a beta reader!

Or actually I have one, but she didn't respond for over a month and as she hasn't been updating her profile or her stories either I guess she won't be responding or a long time…

So I post this now and if you spot any mistakes, tell me about them, please


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